Many Americans use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in pursuit of health and well-being. The 2007 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), which included a comprehensive survey of CAM use by Americans, showed that approximately 38 percent of adults use CAM.
CAM is a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not generally considered part of conventional medicine. Conventional medicine (also called Western or allopathic medicine) is medicine as practiced by holders of M.D. and D.O. degrees and by allied health professionals, such as physical therapists, psychologists, and registered nurses. The boundaries between CAM and conventional medicine are not absolute and specific CAM practices may, over time, become widely accepted.
The term “complementary medicine” refers to use of CAM together with conventional medicine. An example is the use of acupuncture along with conventional medicinal techniques to lessen pain. Most use of CAM by Americans is complementary. “Alternative medicine” refers to use of CAM in place of conventional medicine. “Integrative medicine” (also called integrated medicine) refers to a practice that combines both conventional and CAM treatments for which there is evidence of safety and effectiveness.
One type of CAM is the whole medical system of homeopathy. It is a complete system of theory and practice that has evolved over time in different cultures and apart from conventional medicine. Homeopathy is used for wellness and prevention and to treat many diseases and conditions.
Homeopathy dates back to the eighteenth century and is founded on the principles of pharmacology and biology. Homeopathy seeks to stimulate the body's ability to heal itself by giving very small doses of highly diluted substances. The therapeutic method that is the foundation of modern homeopathy was first developed by German physician Samuel Hahnemann. He articulated two of the foundational principles of homeopathy.
The first is the principle or law of similars (or “like cures like”). This principle states that a disease can be cured by a substance that produces similar symptoms in healthy people. Hahnemann theorized that if a substance could cause certain disease symptoms in a healthy person, then small amounts of the substance could cure a sick person who had similar symptoms.
The second is the principle of dilutions (or “law of minimum dose”). This principle states that the lower the dose of medication, the greater its effectiveness. Hahnemann theorized that the power of a given dose of medication is related to the surface area of molecules with which it comes into contact.
Later researchers further refined and developed the principles outlined by Hahnemann. In the late nineteenth century, Hugo Schultz postulated that the effect of a stimulus on a living cell is indirect and proportional to its intensity and quantity. Later, he demonstrated that very low concentrations of yeast toxins increased yeast growth over 100 fold.
At about the same time, the psychiatrist Rudolph Arndt developed his “Basic Law of Biology,” which states that weak stimuli slightly accelerate the vital activity, middle-strong stimuli raise it, strong stimuli suppresses it, and very strong stimuli halt vital activity. These separate observations were formulated by Arndt into one of the earliest laws of pharmacology representing the homeopathic effect, the Arndt-Schultz law, which states: every stimulus on a living cell elicits an activity, which is inversely proportional to the intensity of the stimulus (Martius F. Das Arndt-Schultz Gnindgesetz, Muench Med. Wschr., 1923, 70(31):1005-1006).
One of the basic tenets of homeopathy is that a cure or treatment for a disease can be evoked by using a high dilution of a material that resembles but is different from the cause of the disease. Homeopathy is widely accepted as a useful therapeutic and has been demonstrated to have characteristic and reproducible effects. A critical review of more than 100 controlled and/or clinical studies of homeopathy determined that patients received positive healing benefits from homeopathy beyond the placebo effect (Kleijnen, J. et al. 1991 Brit. Med. J. 302:316-323; Linde, K., Clausius, N., Ramirez, G., Melchart, D., Eitel, F., Hedges, L. V., Jonas, W. B., 1997, Lancet, 350:834-843; Reilly, D., et al, 1994, Lancet, 344:1601-1608).
Many homeopathic remedies are used in very low concentrations on the order of micrograms (10−6 M) and nanograms (10−9 M); however, in other homeopathic preparations, the dilutions exceed Avogadro's number (6.023×10−23). When homeopathic compounds are repetitively diluted 1:10 (written as “X”) or 1:100 (written as “C”), with repeated succussions (similar to vortexing) at least 24 times, a potency is achieved (10−24 or 24X or 12C) that is so highly dilute that the probability of a single molecule of the original substance remaining in the volume used is less than 1×10−10.
Homeopathic practitioners believe that the potency of a compound increases with increasing dilutions. In traditional homeopathic practice, the standard homeopathic dosage is 10-15 drops of a 10−12 molar, or 6C, solution administered two to three times per day. A 10−60 molar or 30C may be given one to three times per day. A 10−400 molar or 200C may be given only one time per month or year. A 6C dilution approximates 1 picogram/ml, which is used in cell culture but would be considered a lower than physiological dose when administered to a patient either orally, topically or by injection.
Highly dilute homeopathic remedies have been effective in treating some conditions, including viral infections, in vivo. Homeopathic dilutions of 200× to 1000× of typhoidinum, hydrophobinum, tuberculinum, nux vomica and malandrinum 100% inhibited pock-like lesions caused by a chicken embryo DNA virus on the chorio-allantoic membrane compared to controls (Singh, L. M. and Gupta, G. 1985 Brit. Homeopathy 74:168-174). Other homeopathic remedies, the same active compound at different homeopathic concentrations, or control phosphate buffered solution (PBS), had lesser or no effect.
While the exact mechanism of action of homeopathic remedies is unknown, magnetic resonance image measurements on serial dilutions of substances indicate that the hydroxyl (OH) groups in the solvent of solutions continue to change as dilutions become successively higher (Sacks, A. D. 1983 J. Holistic Med. 5:175-176; Smith, R. and Boericke, G. 1968 J. Am. Inst. Homeopathy 61:197-212; Smith, R. and Boericke, G. 1966 J. Am. Inst. Homeopathy 59:263-279). It is clear that the specific effects of homeopathics are of a non-molecular origin, yet provide potent biological activities that are clinically effective.
It has been postulated that highly dilute compounds transfer biological activity to cells by electromagnetic fields (Benveniste, J. 1993 Frontier Perspectives 3:13-15). Del Giudice et al. have hypothesized that interactions between the electric dipoles of water and the radiation fields of a charged molecule generate a permanent polarization of water which becomes coherent and has the ability to transmit specific information to cell receptors, somewhat like a laser (Del Giudice, E., Preparata, G., Vitiello, G. 1988, Phys. Rev. Lett. 61:1085-1088).
One common homeopathic formulation uses proteins, especially naturally occurring proteins, as the active compound. Although these formulations have largely been shown to be effective, they have come under increased scrutiny by government agencies responsible for the safety and security of food, cosmetics, dietary supplements, and the like. The agencies are concerned that formulations made using certain proteins may represent an unknown or ill defined risk to the end user.
It would be desirable to develop a homeopathic formulation that provides the same benefit of formulations prepared with complete proteins but with a lower risk profile.